Warning: this chapter may be triggering to people who deal with dissociative episodes, so please read with care.
A wise old owl lived in an oak,
the more he saw the less he spoke.
The less he spoke the more he heard,
why can't we all be like that wise old bird?
She walks into training ground three with a skip in her step, ready to face whatever awaits her.
The skies are devoid of clouds, the air is crisp, and Minato has been following her since she left her house two hours ago, even during her trip to the red light district.
She made it just for him, certain that he would drop her at that point. An easily flustered twenty-year-old being that close to so many very pretty, very naked ladies? Not a chance. But he surprised her and kept on her trail like the trooper that he is, though she's sure the pit stop made an impression.
Minato is the first thing she sees upon her entrance, standing in the middle of the training ground with his arms crossed over his chest. He's staring off into the trees. She wonders what could possibly have his attention in there, but his gaze snaps to her the second she gets within earshot of him and he gives her his usual easy smile.
"Haruko," he says. "Nice to see you."
She comes to stand an arm's length away from him. She can smell his cologne or soap—it's something fresh that vaguely reminds her of how the earth smells when it starts to rain. "Is it?"
"I think so."
She hums. "And where's Kushina?"
"She'll be here in a few minutes," he says. "She and the rest of the team."
"Yeah? And what's keeping them?"
He leans back a bit, just a bit, before he seems to catch the movement and forces himself to straighten up, his arms falling to his sides. The smile on her face grows, bolstered by a flicker of genuine amusement.
Busted.
Crossed arms and leaning away—defensive body language. Such a simple question, but one that he doesn't seem to like, which really tells her all that she needs to know.
She clasps her hands in front of her and leans forward, putting most of her weight in her heels. Strands of her hair slip over her shoulders and hang down in front of her. "So," she says, "why don't you just tell me what I'm doing here?"
He takes a step back, his eyes narrowing a fraction. She feels a flare of chakra near his heel and then a larger burst of chakra around the two of them. She glances down. Between the grass blades, she can see now what she hadn't noticed before—a ring of seals around them, scrawled in the dirt.
"Privacy seals," Minato says. "To keep from prying eyes… or ears. Anybody listening thinks we're talking about what training I have planned for today."
"That seems a bit like overkill," she says.
For the third time, he looks to the trees. He gives her a wry smile. "Not as much as you might think."
She follows his gaze over. There's nothing there. What does he see—or sense—that she doesn't? "Something catch your eye?" she asks, tilting her head in that direction.
"No," he says. "Nothing worth worrying about."
"That doesn't sound very convincing."
He doesn't respond.
And oh, is she intrigued now.
Minato isn't generally this obvious about his mannerisms and tells when he's actively on his guard. The defensive body language was noticeable but wave-worthy—it was subtle, a minor mistake that she caught because she was watching.
The looking around, though? That's obvious. She can't help but think that he wants her to notice.
"What do you want from me, Minato?" she asks.
"Answers."
"And yet, you've asked no questions."
"Will you actually give me any answers if I do?"
She raises an eyebrow.
"Haruko," he says. "I'm not the only with some questions for you."
"I would beg to differ—I don't see anybody else standing here." She surveys the training grounds. "Unless there's somebody else here that I can't see. Did you bring an imaginary friend with you? I've still got some, myself, you know. They're rather fun to have around. You'll never be lonely—"
Minato heaves a sigh and runs a ragged hand through his hair, making it even more chaotic than it already was.
Another obvious tell. This one is more like the defensive posture in that she's certain it's an unintentional slip-up. Something has him worked up, badly. With a slew of emotions swirling in your head, there's only so much you can block out and mask, even for somebody as normally composed as Minato. The dam always breaks and overflows if you try and force it to contain more water than it's built to hold.
She tilts her head. "I'm frustrating you, aren't I?"
For some reason, this question seems to make him sad. He sags like a three-day-old balloon animal that's on its way to being airless but hasn't quite gotten there yet. "Not you."
"Then who?"
Ah. She catches a spark of anger in his eyes and the sudden tightness around his mouth. Whoever it is, the mere thought of them is enough to produce a strong reaction of anger in Minato, a feat that not many can manage.
But again, Minato doesn't respond.
"So it seems I'm not the only one with questions to dance around," she says. "Unfortunately for you, you'll find that this is an area that I'm well practiced."
"Haruko."
"Minato."
"Please, just listen to me—"
"I have no answers for you," she says.
"You still don't know the questions."
"I don't need to."
He shakes his head. "What do you—"
"Minato," she says. She doesn't raise her voice, she never raises her voice, but she speaks his name with the same gravity as a death sentence. "No matter what question you ask me, I have no answers for you."
Minato stares at her and it makes her feel a bit like a complicated seal that he's trying to decipher. Finally, he says, "I see."
She gives him her best Haruko smile. It's small, soft, and deeply uncomfortable. "I don't quite think you do."
Before he can try and question her further, she hears Kushina and the rest of Team Minato bounding towards them, and she turns to watch them approach. She can feel the seals sputter out of existence as Minato deactivates them.
Rin runs right over to her, her entire face brightened by her smile. "Oh, Haruko, you're here!"
"I suppose I am," she answers.
"Kushina told me some of what she's gonna teach us today and it sounds like it's gonna be so much fun!"
"Fun," she says. "Sure."
"Awh, come on! Show some enthusiasm."
She raises a single fist and says, "Woo."
Kakashi rolls his eyes.
Kushina, however, doesn't miss a beat and cuffs Kakashi upside the head. "None of that," she says. "No party pooper energy from you today, mister!"
Kakashi seems unfazed.
She wonders why he didn't dodge the hit. Perhaps the choice was tactical in nature—better to take the gentle swat rather than risk her hitting back with something scarier.
Kushina waves at them. "Alright girls, come on. I'm gonna teach you how to punch a dude so hard his ball—"
Minato flushes. "Keep it appropriate!"
"Fine." Kushina huffs. "I'm gonna teach you how to chakra-punch dudes where it hurts."
Both of them follow behind Kushina to a separate part of the training ground. The whole way there, she feels a tingle on the nape of her neck, and when she glances over her shoulder, she catches Minato watching her before he turns to the boys to start on their lesson.
"Gently, gently," she murmurs, coaxing the noodles out of the packet and into the pot of boiling hot water. Bits of water splash up as each noodle lands inside, producing a hiss as they float down through the water. "Come on."
Gai stands behind her, hovering. "Ah, do not burn yourself!"
"Working on it." She tips the plastic wrapping a bit more, and a handful of noodles slip out. "Shouldn't you be heating up the wok?"
"Ah!" Gai cries. "Yes!"
He goes off to grab the pan out of the cabinets. Without him watching, she throws caution to the wind and dumps the rest of the packet in. She dances out of the way as the pot gives a mighty heave and steam billows out in front of her, bits of water spraying out in the fray. It settles in a few seconds, after which she places the lid on top of it and turns her attention to what Gai's doing.
"How's the beef looking?" she asks.
"It is good!" Gai says. "It will only need another five minutes."
"By which point the wok should be properly heated," she says. "Cool."
"Yes. I will start on chopping the green onions, now."
She leans back against the counter, rubbing her damp hands on the skirt of her dress.
This is attempt five for them at cooking dinner. It hasn't been too disastrous so far, given that their kitchen is still standing, relatively undamaged. One of their meals actually turned out pretty well—teriyaki salmon, one that she's planning for them to try again soon—while the rest were edible but not spectacular.
Between missions and training, the time just isn't there for properly cooked meals. Mostly, they throw a bunch of stuff into the rice cooker and live off of that. Or they get takeout.
But she decided that she wants to make more of an effort and so here they are, in the early evening, the sky covered in the dark purples and reds of dusk, trying to make stir-fry.
Noting that the oil in the pan seems to be hot, she pulls out the marinating beef. The smell of ginger and soy sauce wafts from the ceramic bowl. She takes it over to the counter and, as per instructions, she uses a knife to halve the portion, then goes over to the wok and dumps it in. The oil bubbles and sizzles upon contact with the beef.
"This smells wonderful!" Gai cries, leaning over and taking a heavy whiff. "How Youthful! How Delicious!"
"I hope it tastes as good as it smells," she says.
"Yes!"
She gets her wooden spoon and starts to move it around in the oil.
Out of the corner of her eye, she notices that Gai is watching her instead of finishing up with the onions. "What is it?"
He flushes and hurries to turn back to the cutting board. "It is nothing!"
"Nothing?" She mushes up the meat so that it's smaller and more likely to cook evenly. "Are you sure about that?"
"Yes! I am!"
"I'm not," she says.
Gai cuts more quickly.
She pauses. He doesn't say anything.
She pokes him in the side with the handle of her spoon. He gets another, more insistent jab when he refuses to look over at her.
Gai's cheeks grow a brighter red and he chops even faster, the blade of his knife blurring as he cuts about three times as many onions as they actually need. He seems dead set on not looking at her.
"I will puncture your lung with this spoon if I need to," she says.
He stiffens. "I just…"
She holds the spoon aloft, letting the threat linger.
"I feel as if I am dreaming," he mumbles. Briefly, he looks at her, and then focuses back on the onions. "I spent so long having to remind myself that when I turned around, you were not going to be there. It startles me sometimes, now, when you are."
"Oh," she says.
She can understand the feeling, especially with her hair grown out almost to her shoulders, longer than it was allowed to be during the war. Sometimes when she looks in the mirror in the mornings after getting all made up, what stares back, in its weird mishmash of Haruko and Ama, soft and sharp and short and long, startles her.
Imposter, her mind will whisper.
She doesn't have the heart to contradict it.
"It is silly," he says.
"No. No, I wouldn't say so."
"Really?"
"Yeah," she says. "It's only natural that you'll trip up sometimes while you work on adjusting your reality. This world has a nasty way of crashing through mental constructs like a w—a—sake-drunk s—sport mom."
'Wine-drunk soccer mom' is what she wanted, but by the time she realized that the concept and some of the words don't exist in this world, she was in too deep to stop.
Gai fumbles with his knife. "What?"
"What?" she says.
The look he gives her, formed of confusion, distress, and a hint of wariness, is one that she hasn't gotten in a very long time.
It makes her laugh a real, genuine laugh. It's a tinkling sound that slips out without thought and is something that's entirely hers.
She feels warm.
The second the realization hits her, up her walls go. She can see the fireball coming from a mile away. She's too wary to take another burn—it's been a few weeks since the fire consumed her but she still bears the marks on her soul.
Lazily almost, the fireball floats towards her and splatters itself over the glass. It lacks intensity or any follow it up. Just a single, wimpy, malformed fireball, here to remind her of the dangers that come in the wake of icky human emotions.
She remembers what Nonou had called emotions during one of her lessons: a nuisance of nature that deserves only as much considerations as required to use them against an enemy.
She found it odd that somebody who showed so much emotion could say such a thing. Hypocritical, even. She knows now that it wasn't true—Nonou was just far better than Haruko was at this whole portrayal thing. A master of the art.
For so long, she felt fortunate to have studied under the tutelage of a virtuoso.
She watches the sparks left by the fireball sputter out on the pristine white floor. Unconsciously, she stares down at the marred form she inhabits in this mindscape. A million lightning bolts shaped scars carved into her skin, a tale of the storm she's walked through. A mass of mottled skin, bright red where the last inferno razed her, deeper maroon from her first days back in the village, where the burns have had a chance to settle. A handful of spots where her skin is charred black by frost.
And when she raises her hand to touch her face, her jaw-length hair brushing against her forearm, all she can feel is the smooth porcelain.
The sound of the pot boiling over snaps her out of her mindscape.
She goes to pull the lid off before too much of the frothing water can spill out, but when her fingers touch the top of the lid, the scorching metal burns her hand. She rips her hand away and sends the lid toppling off of the pot. This is good in that it gives the noodles a chance to simmer down, but bad in that the commotion sends a handful of water flying onto the wok and creates a watermelon-sized ball of fire.
She doesn't scream. Gai does.
With her good hand, she reaches over and turns off the heat for both the noodles and the wok. The fire sputters out on its own.
Gai flaps his arms furiously to clear the smoke. She stands back, running her hand under warm water to take the sting from the burn.
As expected, the beef is completely scorched and probably inedible.
"It, um…" Gai pokes the charred meat. "It will have character!"
She looks to the meat, to her burned hand, and sighs. "How unfortunate."
"It appears that we will—" Gai cuts off, looking at her hand. He gasps. "You are hurt!"
"Yeah," she murmurs. "Yeah, I am."
The burn is surprisingly painful. Already, she can see a couple of blisters forming on the tips of her fingers, where most of the contact was made. The rest of her hand is bright red and shiny.
It takes her a minute to register the sight, longer for her mind to wrap around it. That's not supposed to be there.
"I will get the first aid kit!"
"It's not a big deal," she says. "I'll just wrap it in a warm cloth."
But he's not listening.
He marches towards her with an obnoxious red bag and she realizes that there is no option here other than to just let him do it.
So, when he pulls out bandages and ointment, she dutifully holds out her hand and allows him to dab at it and wrap it and treat it like an actual injury. She sits on the floor, cross-legged. He kneels in front of her, bent over her hand, so deeply focused on his task that he could be performing a life-altering surgery for all she knows.
It takes ten minutes—twice as long as any normal person would have taken—before he sits back on his heels and declares it done.
"Thank you," she says.
His mouth does a weird twitching thing, like the entire rest of his face prepared itself for him to start speaking and at the last moment, his lips just refused to follow through. He hurriedly shoves everything back into the kit and tosses it in the bathroom.
She examines her hand. The pain is gone.
She has no idea what he put on there, but it took out all of the sting, almost as if it was never there to start with. She wiggles her fingers to test and still, nothing.
As he comes back into the living room, she asks, "What did you use?"
"Ah," he says. "Just some regular burn cream."
"It worked well," she murmurs. "Really well."
"That is good to hear!" He gives her his signature blinding grin. "Now, I shall go and get us sustenance!"
Gai flies out of the house, slamming the door shut behind him. A second later, he barges back inside and sprints right past her and into his room. He has something in his hand when he comes back out—his wallet—and then he's gone again.
Dazed, she pokes at the bandages. She feels a twinge of pain, a mere fraction of what she expects from a fresh burn.
She smiles to herself.
Rather than sit around while Gai gets their dinner, she picks herself up and walks towards the kitchen, intent on having it clean for when he gets back. It's the least she can do. And maybe one day, if she tries hard enough, she'll be able to pay him back for all of the things he'll never realize he's given her.
"This behaviour is unacceptable, Ama."
"I'm sorry, my lord."
"That is irrelevant. Your apology will not change your failure."
"I know, my lord."
She sits on one knee with her head bowed, and she dares not move a single muscle as Danzo speaks, flanked by two other agents.
"Weakness will not be tolerated," Danzo says. "A dull blade is of no use to me."
She holds her tongue.
Danzo lets out a short breath. "There will be no repeat of this. If you ever return to the village rather than finish a fight again, you will be killed. Am I understood?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Good."
Off he walks, and she hears the other agents approach to administer her punishment.
Which is fine by her.
This, she can easily take. A short tongue lashing and the usual physical beatings? That's of no concern to her. She's grown used to this, unlike her true failing.
Everything was going fine for a while. She was dispatched to find a wealthy iron merchant from River Country that was starting to gouge Konoha with their prices. It was an easy mission—kill the father and son so that the business could be passed on to a different relative who would be more amenable to deals with the village. In fact, the person who tipped the village off was one such relative.
She killed the father without any trouble. He was an older man who slept alone, allowing for a clean hit. The son, though? He was young. Far younger than she was expecting.
He couldn't be older than eight years old and looked so much like Gai did at that age that it knocked the breath clear out of her chest.
She knew immediately that she couldn't kill him.
So, she turned around and walked away without a second thought. She made up a story about enemy ninja crawling all over the place, making it impossible for her to get to the son. Whatever punishment Danzo had in store for her was worth it.
She expected to feel worse about lying to Danzo than she did. She didn't feel good about it—part of her rebelled at the very thought, hated that she even considered it an option. But now, there was a larger part of her that couldn't stand the idea of Danzo knowing that her weakness lay in her brother.
If Danzo found out, he could weaponize it. And that wasn't something she would allow.
She's loath to give Danzo something else of hers when he's already taken so much, least of all something so precious.
She gets her beatings and goes home to her brother.
This time, when he greets her, she has no problem meeting his gaze head-on with a smile of her own.
"Ah. Here we are again."
Minato leans against the railing, having taken the stairs up the Hokage Monument like a normie where most ninja shunshin up. "Again?" he asks. "I don't think we've ever met up here."
She levels him with a look and he laughs as if she's told a rousing joke.
The evening sun reflects off his hair and makes it seem like it's made of gold. His bright blue eyes glow. He's wearing casual clothes, a white t-shirt and black pants, though his headband remains on, peeking out from beneath his bangs. It's one of the few times she's seen him out of his jonin blues and the sight is downright unnerving.
He walks towards her, and she turns back towards the view of the village, bathed in the dim light of a sun that's well on its way to setting. She's too high up to make out any people or buildings; it's just one singular being, to her.
"You were surprisingly difficult to find," he says, sitting himself down across from her. He blocks out her view of the village. "I don't think I've ever seen you come up here."
He props his chin on his palm, rests his elbow on his knee, and starts drawing in the dirt with his free hand. He doesn't look down at what he's doing.
She does, unabashedly, and is unsurprised that he's preparing a privacy seal.
She's content to let him. If this is going where she thinks it's going—the only place it could go, really—it's advantageous for her if the conversation is kept a secret. What he might gain from the privacy is a mystery to her.
"I don't come up here much," she says. "I've got better spots."
"But?"
"No 'but'," she says. "I was wandering around and I... found myself here." She shrugs. "I guess this is why when we were younger, Gai always insisted on holding my hand when we walked through the village."
It's been a long time since she allowed herself to get lost like this. She had left to escape the silence of the house since Gai was still at training for the rest of the day, and the wanderlust hit her. She started walking. She didn't look where, think about why, she just went wherever her feet carried her, picking flowers on the way.
She thinks she'll do it more often. The peacefulness nesting in her chest is too comfortable not to.
"Well, I'll still keep this spot in mind the next time I look for you."
"You don't see enough of me at training?"
"That's only once a week, and you spend most of your time with Kushina," he says. "I only get you for five or ten minutes a week. That's hardly enough time to talk."
His index finger touches the edge of the seal and he pushes chakra into it. She can feel the seal come to life. If she were to guess, she'd say it encompasses a ten-foot circle around the two of them, but it's difficult to tell for certain without the visual boundary.
"This seal is a bit less ideal," he says. "It's more basic. I can't control over what anybody listening will hear, the cost of not being able to set things up beforehand." He smiles at her. "But I suppose I just have to work with what I can."
She studies him.
He seems completely relaxed, unlike last time. What's different this time? Is it that he thinks he might have an edge over her since he surprised her? Does he have information now that he didn't then?
"Now that you have me," she says, leaning towards him. She's fiddling with a flower crown in her lap, twisting and twining the stems in as elaborate a design as their weak forms can handle. "Why don't you go ahead and ask me questions that I'm not going to answer."
"Alright." He sighs. "Are you… are you safe?"
She blinks. The flower crown drops from her fingers and she can feel her face slip, but she doesn't make any move to put it back together.
Of the things he could have opened with, the questions he could have asked, this is absolutely not what she was expecting, and it sets her right off her guard.
"Oh, that…" He scratches the back of his head. "That probably wasn't the best way to open," he mutters.
She watches him, unwilling to open her mouth until she can regain her bearings in this decidedly stupid conversation.
"Okay. Let's start like this: I know that something is going on."
"Something is always going on."
"Something that has you going on off-the-record visits outside the village gates?"
She knits her eyebrows together, racking her brain for any time that he was trailing her while she left for a mission.
She always leaves at night. And while feeling out whether there's anybody behind her is more difficult when she can't see as well, with Minato's track record, she would have been able to notice him following her.
It dawns on her.
She would have noticed him with how obvious he always was—if he always was that obvious.
In hindsight, it was rather arrogant of her to assume that he would allow her even the brief glimpses that he did while he followed her. It was well done. He never fully revealed himself, no glaring flaws in his technique, just gave her enough pieces that she might know he was there, following a short ways behind her.
"You're sneakier than I gave you credit for," she murmurs.
He smiles at her, but it feels hollow. "You're skilled, Haruko, but I'm a bit out of your league—give it a few years."
She nods. "Just how often have you been following me?"
"Enough that I'm concerned."
"About me?"
He considers. "About what you're doing."
How much can she say? How much should she say? Clearly, her files have been kept improperly updated. If she were to guess, she'd say it's to conceal what she's doing, which she doesn't blame the village for. They have an important reputation to uphold.
The approachable and 'friendly' reputation that Konoha displays to the civilian world is at the center of their economic health. Merchants from all over the world, enemy countries included, need to feel safe crossing the gates of Konoha for trade, or the village will crumble. There are technicalities in place and gazes turned away to allow the economy to thrive because if the economy is in poor shape, so too is Konoha. They're far too large to subside entirely on the work their ninja do.
And what Ama does? Killing diplomats and merchants who cross the village, not showing leniency to even those who reside within the Land of Fire? That could be detrimental. If Konoha's willing to kill its own citizens, what's to stop them from murdering those who are technically their enemies?
Nothing is, of course. But they can't know that.
And she doesn't think Minato can, either.
"I'm not working against the village," she says.
"I never said you were."
"Then what do you think I'm doing?"
"I don't know yet," he admits. "I was hoping you might enlighten me."
She sits upright and holds herself loosely, like a puppet with lax strings, propped up without emphasis in any part of her posture. "You've read my file."
"I have."
"But you haven't read my file."
He frowns at this.
She doesn't know where the line is, here.
Can I trust him?
Haruko did. Ama doesn't.
But that shouldn't be her angle—she should only think about what it'll take to get him off of her back. That's all that matters. She should divulge enough information to reassure him, but not enough to tip him off of anything else. That's what Danzo would want of her.
"My trips have all been sanctioned," she says. "It's not in my general file, it's—"
"Haruko," he says, and it sends chills down her spine. "I have access to both versions of your file—redacted and unredacted. There's nothing in either to indicate that you were taking those trips."
She falls into a befuddled silence. She notes, uneasily, as he works his jaw, that he's visibly agitated.
It's funny.
All at once, she finds herself reminded of the fact that one of the most powerful ninja in the village, second to only a handful of people, is sitting across from her. It's not what he said that does it—it's how he said it. How he can promise a raging storm in his voice, turning the air around him metallic and tangy and charged like the seconds before lightning strikes the ground.
She wonders how many people forget that even the softest of summer clouds can turn static. She hadn't thought she would be counted among that number, yet here she is. Minato has a way of doing that to her.
Without thinking, she leans back.
"I need you to swear to me that you won't breathe a word of this anybody," Minato says. "No matter what. This has to stay here."
"I swear," she says.
She knows it's not necessarily a promise that she can keep. Yet, the second they leave her mouth that, it resonates through her very soul. She has no intention of telling anybody about this conversation unnecessarily, at the very least.
"I was given access to your whole file," he says. "Lord Hokage allowed me access when I mentioned some of the… oddities with you and your situation since coming back to the village"
"Oh."
"As far as the village is concerned, you've now left the walls on three separate occasions for one to two weeks at a time to do who knows what. Combining that with the fact that you spent a lot of time in enemy territory under deep cover? It doesn't look good."
She notes that his list is missing another seemingly important factor. "And I guess it didn't help that people thought I was dead?"
Minato hesitates a hair too long before answering, "Yes, that too."
How wonderfully suspicious.
"You think I'm a traitor," she says, opting to keep the conversation moving instead of chasing what she knows will be a brick wall.
"I don't," he says. "But there are some who do."
"Who?"
"The Konoha Council," he says. "A handful of other high up ninja—those that are aware that this is a situation—like my teacher."
Danzo.
Something uncomfortably cold settles in her gut. "And you want me to tell you what's actually going on so you can prove my loyalty."
"Ideally."
She closes her eyes, a short breath fluttering out of her. "I can't tell you anything more."
"Can't or won't?"
And isn't that the kicker.
The cold blossoms outwards, creeping out over her whole body.
She flexes her fingers, imagining the feeling of glass against her palm, the sturdiness of it. The walls don't crack, but they shudder beneath the force of the blizzard. Wreaths of ice cloud the glass.
Danzo set her up.
If that wasn't the case, then this conversation wouldn't be happening in the first place. He would have included her missions in her records, told the Hokage about them, done something that could give her credibility.
He hasn't. He's allowed her to be seen as a possible traitor.
She can see that clearly. So why does she still hesitate?
Her throat tightens.
She knows that she can't tell Minato anything due to the seal. But that's not all that's stopping her, otherwise she could have simply said that she can't answer. She could have told the truth—as much of it as she can divulge.
Yet, her silence is because she won't answer. Why, even now, does she feel the need to obey? Why does she still want to protect him?
Why does she continue to hide behind the walls that he built her to need?
Minato's face softens. "Haruko," he says. "I'm not the enemy." He pauses. "At least… I'm not your enemy. I'm not trying to be. Please, I just want to help you."
But she shakes her head. "I don't have any answers for you, Minato."
She goes to get up, but he grabs her wrist. It's a weak hold—she could break it.
She doesn't.
"This is going to catch up with you," he warns. "You can't keep avoiding this."
"Don't underestimate me," she says. She ends it off with a smile and a laugh. "I'm quite good at avoiding my problems."
She watches the conflict work through Minato's posture. His grip on her tightens. His eyes close, he lets out a breath. "When you change your mind," he says, "come find me."
"Already assuming I will?"
He holds her gaze, not saying a word.
Fine, then. "We'll see," she says.
His expression stiffens, his lips purse, and she feels his grip tighten again.
But then he lets go.
She stands up and steps away, far enough that she's confident she's out of the bounds of the privacy seals, leaving the flower crown on the ground, abandoned. She waits to see if he'll say something else. He has a hunger in his face that speaks of dissatisfaction.
He says nothing.
She walks away, leaving him alone atop the Hokage Monument.
AN: Special thanks to Sage Thrasher and Frolic for their beta work on this chapter!
So thank you to all of you who were so wonderfully supportive in your reviews on the last chapter. I tried to get back to as many of you as I could, but apologies to those who didn't get a reply.
First off: I want to get this out of the way first, for those who don't want to read the big block o' text below. The next chapter will be out in two weeks guaranteed because it's actually already written, it just needs some editing/to be beta read. And the next-next chapter is currently halfway done, so I feel comfortable promising to have that chapter out on schedule, as well. So expect updates on March 9th and 23rd!
Second off: Unfortunately, I do have one more mini soapbox moment really quick, but I swear this will be the last time I talk about this kind of thing. I just want to make a note on something that I think some people genuinely don't understand.
There's a difference between opinions and criticism. A big part of that? All opinions are valid, all criticisms are not.
Every person is entitled to have their opinion and have zero need to justify them. Don't like something? That's totally okay! Love something? That's also okay! Your opinion is your opinion and nobody can tell you that it is invalid. However, the same can't be said about criticisms. Criticism can be invalid.
Criticism can also be either constructive or unconstructive. How to know which yours is? Look at your criticism and ask yourself whether or not the writer can actively improve themselves with what you have written. Does it have examples of what is wrong? Is it respectful and written in good faith? Is it well thought out? If the answer to all of those is "yes", then you have something constructive.
As well, it's also worth noting that a few people seem to have confused the difference between criticism and opinion. Here's an easy way to figure out if you've just levelled an author with criticism or an opinion: if the ultimate "why" of what you've just said is "I did not like it", then it's an opinion.
For criticism, if you give an example of something bad in a fic and your "why" is something like "this isn't coherent" or "this is unrealistic", then you might have a valid criticism on your hands.
And at this point (if anybody is still reading) I'm sure you're asking yourself, "Iaso, where are you going with this?"
Here's where I'm going. If you give me a valid and constructive criticism that is written respectfully and with the intent to help me improve as an author, yes, I absolutely will give what you have said due thought. If you give me an invalid and unconstructive criticism or an opinion that is being written in bad faith, there's a good chance I'm going to disregard it. And I can tell you right now, there are a lot of authors who share the same thought process.
So, yeah. I feel like this is just kind of... something important to talk about? Like I think a lot of authors are afraid to discuss these kinds of things because they don't want to risk the backlash from people in reviews, but just from some people I talked to, I realized that not a lot of people don't know the difference. And if this can be helpful to anybody currently reading, then it was worth the ten minutes this took me to type up, lmao.